TY - JOUR
T1 - The competitive development of flowers and ornamentals firms through the use of web-marketing strategies: a survey in the convergence objective regions in Italy
AU - Di Franco, Caterina
AU - Asciuto, Antonio
AU - Galati, Antonino
AU - Schimmenti, Emanuele
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - The growth of ICT, and in particular theintegrated use of internet within firm marketing strategies, has brought about deep changes at both sector and firm level. Firm processes have been drastically modified in their communication and promotional aspects. In particular, firmcustomer relationships are changing and therefore internet represents a preferential means, not only for transferring the firm image inthe global communication, but above all in order to build a dialogue and a continuous interaction which contribute to consumers’ fidelization.This empirical research proposal is to beconsidered in the framework of “Business toConsumer” relationships and is addressed to the flowers and ornamentals firms of Southern Italy which have adopted internet as a means of communication and marketing.The study has the aim to assess website quality of a random sample of firms by following the standard methodologies proposed in the international literature. These techniques allow researchers to evaluate overall quality through the perception of web users or privilegedrespondents (sector experts). The approach here adopted is the one proposed by Cox and Dale (2002); the authors analyze website quality and its capacity for achieving customer fidelization based on four criteria: website size and quality, capacity for supplying products and services,potentiality for inspiring confidence and fidelize the customer. Another factor is important, the capacity of the website to contextualize information with reference to purchase or product consumption experiences (Ottimo, 2000).In a globalised scenario where competitiveness in the international market becomes more and more a critical success factor, flowers firms of the Italian Mezzogiorno regions could draw marketadvantages from their presence on the internet with high quality websites.
AB - The growth of ICT, and in particular theintegrated use of internet within firm marketing strategies, has brought about deep changes at both sector and firm level. Firm processes have been drastically modified in their communication and promotional aspects. In particular, firmcustomer relationships are changing and therefore internet represents a preferential means, not only for transferring the firm image inthe global communication, but above all in order to build a dialogue and a continuous interaction which contribute to consumers’ fidelization.This empirical research proposal is to beconsidered in the framework of “Business toConsumer” relationships and is addressed to the flowers and ornamentals firms of Southern Italy which have adopted internet as a means of communication and marketing.The study has the aim to assess website quality of a random sample of firms by following the standard methodologies proposed in the international literature. These techniques allow researchers to evaluate overall quality through the perception of web users or privilegedrespondents (sector experts). The approach here adopted is the one proposed by Cox and Dale (2002); the authors analyze website quality and its capacity for achieving customer fidelization based on four criteria: website size and quality, capacity for supplying products and services,potentiality for inspiring confidence and fidelize the customer. Another factor is important, the capacity of the website to contextualize information with reference to purchase or product consumption experiences (Ottimo, 2000).In a globalised scenario where competitiveness in the international market becomes more and more a critical success factor, flowers firms of the Italian Mezzogiorno regions could draw marketadvantages from their presence on the internet with high quality websites.
KW - Flower and ornamental plants firms
KW - convergence
Regions
KW - web-marketing
KW - website quality
KW - Flower and ornamental plants firms
KW - convergence
Regions
KW - web-marketing
KW - website quality
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10447/61489
M3 - Article
VL - 14
SP - 327
EP - 339
JO - INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT CASES
JF - INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT CASES
SN - 1741-6264
ER -